The art of the leaf's puppeteer
by As Nodt
Summary: Learning about the art of puppets at a young age Naruto becomes determined to learn the art himself, will this change the shinobi world? Or will everything remain the same, unchanged.


Staring at the pure white ceiling above him Naruto cursed, he really should have listened to the old man for once and not stolen a kunai to play with. At first he only accidentally cut his finger a little, which was no big deal. But when he had thrown it at a tree and when had gone to pick it up he'd somehow managed to trip, ending up with the kunai which he had just picked up and now held in his hand had found itself lodged into his right eye, and it had hurt. A lot.

Bringing his hand up he touched the eye patch that covered the spot where his right eye had been, it was a strange feeling, knowing that he'd never be able to see trough it again. Sighing to himself he though back to the firm scolding he had gotten from the old man, which mostly consisted of words about how kunais weren't meant to be used as toys by eight year olds, and how lucky he was that the kunai didn't cause anything worse then piercing his eye in half, and how worried he had been. Naruto sighted once again as the picture of the third Hokages worried face came back into his memory, he was probably the only one who wasn't happy about the boys incident with the exception of Teuchi and his daughter Ayame.

"Naruto" Said the third Hokage as he stepped trough the door and looked at the boy. "The doctors are saying that you will have to be bedridden for a few more days before you're allowed to leave."

Narutos lone eye widened before he shifted his gaze from the old man onto the floor below him, if there was anything that he hated more then being ignored by all of the villagers then it was hospitals. Hospitals and the lectures at the shinobi academy.

"Eh? Do I really have to stay here any longer old man?"

Hizuren chuckled at the boys reply, it seemed like the event that had transpired hadn't changed the young child's mentality to much at the very least. "I'm afraid so, but don't worry I brought you something to entertain yourself with." he finished as he pulled a small object out of his robe and handed it to the bedridden boy.

"...a book?" Naruto said as he grabbed the book, it's cover was a faded brown color with the words "The weapons of the shinobi world" written on it.

Seeing the boys confusion Hizuren decided to enlighten the boy, "I figured that by reading this you'll be able to satisfy your curiosity without removing your second eye this time. And don't worry, I made sure to pick something with lots of pictures for you."

Seeing the boys smile return as soon as he mentioned pictures he decided to leave the young boy to read in peace.

"Sa-Samehada the greatsword." Read Naruto out load to himself as he looked at the cool looking sword that seemed to be wrapped in bandages. "Heh, This book is way better then the ones they gave us at the academy!"

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><p>Two weeks had passed since Naruto had been released from the hospital, currently he was seated on his floor, grasping his hand while seeing to be concentrating deeply, he had already gone trough the book two times already and one section in particular caught the boys attention, the one on Sunagakure's puppets. Not only did the concept of filling a puppet that you could control with all kind of deadly weapons sound cool, the fact that you could give them any appearance you wanted was what truly sold him on deciding to learn the art for himself, after all he had ever wanted was friends and the acknowledgement of others, but all his attempts had merely ended with him being ignored or getting even more glared then before. So who needed them, when he could just make his own friends?<p>

But before he could accomplice such a thing he needed to not only learn to make a puppet, but control it as well, which is what he was currently doing. He had sneaked into the library in an attempt to learn more about controlling puppets, and had found out that it was done by focusing your chakra into strings from your fingers that you connected to the puppets. Which is what he was currently doing on the floor, he knew how to focus his chakra trough his body, they had after all already learned the leaf concentration exercise in the academy. But moving it outside his body in the form of strings was a whole different manner, the best he could accomplish right now was a slight blue glow at his finger tips.

"Gah! Why is this taking so long!" Naruto exclaimed in disdain at the fact that days of practice had done essentially nothing to improve his skill with chakra strings. "...Maybe I should ask old man to give me some tips.."

Nodding to himself he decided to swallow his pride for now and made his way over towards the Hokages tower.

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><p>"Hm? Naruto what brings you here?" Hizuren asked as he stared at the one eyed blond in front of him, the boy didn't usually visit him on Fridays.<p>

"Hey old man can you give me advice on something?"

Now Hizuren felt the confusion inside of his grow slightly bigger, the boy didn't usually ask for advices on anything.

"And what would you want my advice on Naruto."

"How do you get better at using your chakra?"

Hizuren smiled at the boys question, it seemed like the accident hadn't discouraged the boy from becoming a shinobi, but rather made him more serious about it then before. "The easiest way do accomplice that would be to improve your chakra control, Naruto."

"Eh? But we've already learned the leaf concentration exercise in the academy, and I can already to that without any problem." Naruto stated while he narrowed his lone eye.

Hizuren could not help but to let out an audible chuckle at the boy. "Naruto, there are many more chakra exercises then the leaf concentration one, like tree walking or water walking."

"Eh? Why didn't they mention those at the academy then?" Naruto asked as he tilted his head slightly to the side to express his confusion.

"They are more advanced then the leaf concentration exercise, hence they are usually taught to the students once they graduate and becomes genins."

Nodding in understanding Naruto spurted a grin and thanked the old man before he ran out of the building as fast as he could, he would need to find a book that covered these exercises in the library.

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><p>Two months passes since Naruto had gotten the advice from Hizuren, and improving his chakra control using the tree walking exercise had assisted largely with his progress with the chakra strings, he could now produce actual strings rather then the simple blue glow, granted they were only about 20 centimetres in length, and he could only produce two of them in total. None the less Naruto counted it as a great deal of progress for only a little more then two moths work.<p>

Of course he hadn't spent the two months doing noting but practice his chakra control and chakra strings, no. He had also started to read about human and animal anatomy, after all, how would he be able to design working puppets if he didn't know how a human being or a animal looked. and functioned. He had also begun to create his first puppet, it was nothing special, just a small snake like puppet. It wasn't designed to be used in actual combat, but rather to help him practice using the chakra strings. But its creation hadn't been as easy as he had expected it to be, getting the wood and metal needed would've been impossible if it wasn't for the fact that he and the other students had just learned the Henge in the academy, and even with the materials he had struggled, he had chosen the snake form because it seemed like a simple design, just a straight tube and a join, and then repeat the progress. But it had turned out that creating the joints of the puppet had been far harder then he had originally anticipated, the amount of precision it took to make sure that they joints wouldn't lock up was astounding, once he had finished he had gotten a new found respect to all those master craftsmen of Suna who could mass produce battle puppets like it was nothing.

Staring at the small wooden snake in front of him he felt a little bit of pride for his first 'successful' creation. However, if he had to sum up his creation with one word it would probably be; appalling, or maybe horrendous. The over all texture of the puppet looked as if it had been carved out of a block of wood with a knife. Which it had in fact been.

"I guess It'll do for now." Naruto muttered to himself before he sat down and attached his three chakra strings to the crudely made puppet. Seeing the puppet twitch slightly as he moved his fingers Naruto felt a grin form on his face, it wasn't much but it was a start. And not celebrating his accomplishment with a bowl or five of Ichiraku ramen would be a sin.

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><p><strong>Well that's it for the first chapter, actually it feels more like a prologue then a proper chapter, so I'd like to apologise about how short it was, I'll be trying to write longer chapters in the future. Anyway in case anyone is wondering I'm planning on having Naruto struggle a bit with learning to use puppets and making them, after all, there's no one to actually teach him about it other then a few books in the library, so it'll be mostly trial and error, and the next one or two chapters will take place before the Genin exam.<br>**

**Well that's all for now, do review or send me a PM and tell me what you think about it so far.**


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